Chapter Four The Origins of Cows

The cows we carry around are not created because we have deliberately set out to learn them. In fact, as absurd as it may seem, they are the result of positive intentions. Behind every behavior, no matter how self-destructive it may seem, lies a positive intention toward ourselves.

We do not do anything simply to cause harm to ourselves, but because we believe that we are somehow deriving a benefit from it.

For example, the person whose cow is: “The day I decide that I want to stop smoking, I will stop without any problem. It is just that I have not made the decision to stop” uses this self-deception to protect his low self-esteem and hide his inability to get rid of this bad habit.

His cow gives him the feeling that he is in control of his bad habit and not that his bad habit is in control of him. Do you realize the danger of a cow like this? You can literally carry it around your whole life, without ever feeling bad about your helplessness, or doing anything to remedy the situation.

Like this one, many of the other limiting beliefs that we carry with us throughout our lives have been the result of good intentions. Notice how easy it is to acquire a cow. Let's say that this cow sounds like this: “I'm not good at this.”

This cow is very common among people and it begins almost unconsciously. The person learns to do a task, a profession or a trade well. He enjoys doing it, develops a special talent for it and after some time thinks: “This is what I'm good at.”

Do you realize what just happened? Upon reaching this conclusion, this realization, the person unintentionally begins to think that perhaps this is his talent, his calling in life, his true and only vocation. He assumes that in no other area will he be able to be as effective as in this one, and stops seeking his development in other areas. You start making excuses (cows), finding reasons (more cows) to try to explain your limitations and make statements such as:

-I've always been like that. -I wasn't born with the talent for that. -I don't have the body that's needed for that. -I don't have the right personality.

And so, inadvertently, you create limitations that don't allow you to expand your potential. However, the real problem is far from being physical, congenital or personality-related. The real problem is the mental programs that we have stored in the archives of our subconscious, and that act as defense mechanisms that help us safeguard the image we may have of ourselves.

See? These are cows, because it's not that you think you're not good at anything. What happens is that you're convinced that you're good at one thing and that the rest is not something for which you have an innate talent. Your cow of: "this is what I'm good at" gives you a certain sense of tranquility, because you know that at least one thing you're good at. And to reinforce this idea even more, you frequently remind yourself that “not everyone can be good at everything.” However, the truth is that all of us have the capacity to be good at many other things. Many more than we are willing to accept. However, we will never find out unless we kill our “this is what I am good at” cow.

Other limitations (cows) are the result of past experiences that have become invalid. Maybe when you were six years old you were asked to recite a poem in front of the class and your teacher laughed, or some classmates made fun of you, which, as you might expect, made you feel bad and from that moment on you stopped reciting in front of other people or speaking in public, to avoid further embarrassment in front of your classmates and to evade criticism from other people.

After many years of allowing this cow to grow and fatten in the stable of your mind, you came to accept that public speaking was not one of your skills, that you simply did not have the talent for it. And hearing that you are not the only person afflicted by this illness gives you the peace of mind that you are not alone.

Today, at forty years of age, when someone asks you to make a short presentation at work, or to speak for five minutes about the project you are working on, you respond: “Look, ask me to do all the work, if you want I will write it up and print it, or if you want I will take care of all the necessary research, but do not ask me to stand in front of the group (which is six people) and speak, even if it is only for five minutes, because in that field my skills are zero.”

You may have gone more than thirty years without trying to do it, but you assume that your skills to do so must be the same as when you were six years old, which is absurd, of course.

So we often allow a cow that has been in our mind for many years and that today possibly has no validity, to tell us what we can do and what we cannot do.

What I want you to understand is that many of the limitations (cows) that you have at this moment are not physical, nor do they have to do with your mental capacity, your gifts or your talents, but with limiting beliefs, which are mostly erroneous ideas about your true potential and what is or is not possible. Remember that any erroneous idea that we hold in our subconscious for a long time and validate with our actions, becomes a form of self-hypnosis.

This is precisely what stops many people from succeeding. Through this form of self-hypnosis they have filed in their mind a whole series of false beliefs and ideas that, perhaps at one time were valid, but now are no longer. However, since they have not yet been erased, they continue to exert their limiting effect from the depths of your subconscious mind.